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::INSIGHT::

What we see, we have already "read" as our visual cortex filters our perceptions down through the doors of our experiences. What we read is immediately transposed perceptually to some kind of image that is compatible with our imagination. Here you will find much to read, and lots to see.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Joy Harjo included an excerpt from her new play. She is rehearsing hard in San Diego for an opening in LA. Her play is called, WINGS OF NIGHT SKY, WINGS OF MORNING LIGHT. Good show, Joy!

Redbird Monahwee (to her father):

I followed you as you unloaded it from the truck. I helped, as you strung the deer up on the tree. I squatted down with you, as the red sun kissed the red earth. You tamped out some tobacco into our hands.You said, “We pray with tobacco to acknowledge the spirit of the deer. We give thanks, mvto”.“There is much suffering on this earth. Even plants suffer. Tobacco agreed to come along as we walk this world. It’s medicine, a gift from the Creator.”And remember I said, But Daddy, you smoke two packs of Lucky Strikes a day!”I was such a little plant, drinking in your words. “And what about whiskey, Dad”, I asked you. “It's killing me”, you said.“I'm sorry, Hokte”.“Pray for me girl.”

Saturday, March 28, 2009

I circle my shadowat 5 AM when crickets gather in the doorwayshowing their teeth and striped tonguessilver eyessinging about a wind blown desertsinking into the waist of the setting sun.

I have become a man crawling over his broken fingerssearching for a ring to plant my lips on,eating cinders while breaking eggs on my brother's white skin.

I have either become a black dot growing legsrunning from the blank page,or the mud that is caked over the keyhole of a churchhiding its bandaged eyes.

This bed quivers,it wants to become a spider againand sting silent the antelope that leap over childrenwhose mothers abandon their potsand follow hoof prints into the citysmudging themselves with the smoke of burning hair.Look! There between the eyes of the horizontwo crows waiting for our bodies.

Imagine this at 5 AM,when the river slides into a silent citystuffed with decaying corn husk,when everyone discovers razors in the womb of this land,and the sun decides which bridge should be covered with skin and leavesand which should remain as goat ribs submerged in sand smelling of diesel engines.

Friday, March 27, 2009

I just got a report from home. Now there are two redbird families in the yard. Two males with their wives. The guys are chasing each other around the yard. The females are sitting together on the wall, visiting each other.

The __________ switched the cards, tore up the old faces, said: the bare earth is moist with dew,clip the ears off these gates, let them hear only their stomachs grunt and heave now,let them shriek from their hinges behind you.

I have taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, since 1984. The IAIA is a federally funded two-year college with one-hundred students, representing over seventy tribes, from across the United States. Students can receive an Associate of Arts degree majoring in creative writing, museum studies, two-dimensional arts, or three-dimensional arts. It has been a privilege to work with Native students who are pursuing poetry, and I am sometimes astonished at their progress.

Sherwin Bitsui came to the Institute in 1997 and graduated in May, 1999. He studied poetry and painting with enormous dedication and skill. While there, he received a Truman Capote Literary Trust Scholarship as well as a scholarship to attend the summer writing workshops at Naropa Institute. His poems have just begun appearing in literary journals, such as Frank (Paris) and Retinal Exchange, an anthology of New Mexico writers.

Sherwin Bitsui was born in 1975 in Fort Defiance, Arizona. He is Diné (Navajo) and has a profound connection to his culture. He speaks Diné, is a member of the Bitter Water clan, and actively participates in the ceremonial life of his tribe. Yet, although his world view is Diné he is writing rhythmically supple poems in English.

Upon a first reading, the sharp, vivid images of Bitsui’s poems appear to have some connection to surrealism. And one could argue that there is a deep current that connects him to Latin American surrealism, although he enriches and modifies it by drawing on the landscape of the Southwest and on images intimately connected with Native ritual and myth. His images oftentimes depict a world-out-of-balance. Indeed, his work struggles with the tension between Diné and English, between the desire to restore a balance with the natural world and the recognition of how ineluctable the forces of twentieth century technology are. In struggling to reconcile these opposing forces, his poems and prose poems enact a personal ceremony.

Point north, north where they walkin long blankets of curled bark,dividing a line in the sand,smelling like cracked shell,desert wind, river where they left youcalling wolves from the hills, a list of namesgrowling from within the whirlwind.

Woman from the north,lost sister who clapped at rain clouds.We were once thereholding lightning boltsabove the heads of sleeping snakes.

Woman, sister, the cave wants our skin back,it wants to shake our legs free from saltand untwist our hair into strands of yarnpulled rootless from the pocket of a manwho barks when he is reminded of the setting sun.

At 5 A.M., crickets gather in the doorway,each of them a handful of smoke,crawling to the house of a weeping woman,breaking rocks on the thigh of a man stretching,ordering us to drop coins into her shadow,saying, "There, that is where we were born."

Born with leaves under our coats,two years of solitude,the sky never sailed from us,we rowed toward it,only to find a shell, a house, and a weeping woman.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Tonight I draw a raven’s wing inside a circle measured a half second before it expands into a hand. I wrap its worn grip over our feet as we thrash against pine needles inside the earthen pot.

He sings an elegy for handcuffs, whispers its moment of silenceat the crunch of rush-hour traffic,and speaks the dialect of a forklift, lifting like cedar smoke over the mesas acred to the furthest block.

Two headlights flare from blue dusk --the eyes of ravens peer atCoyote biting his tail in the forklift, shaped like another reservation-- another cancelled check.

One finger pointed at him,that one--dishwasher,he dies like this with emergency lights blinking though the creases of his ribbon shirt.

A light buzzed loud and snapped above the kitchen sink.I didn’t notice the sting of the warning: Coyote scattering headlights instead of stars;howling dogs silenced by the thought of the moon;constellations rattling from the atmosphere of the quivering gourd.

How many Indians have stepped onto train tracks, hearing the hoofbeats of horses in the bend above the river rushing at them like a cluster of veinsscrawled into words on the unmade bed?

In the cave on the backside of a lie soldiers eye the birth of a new atlas,

Strange, how they burrowed into the side of this rock.Strange . . . to think,they "belonged"and stepped through the flowering of a future apparent in the rearview mirror, visible from its orbitaround a cluster of knives in the galaxy closest to the argument.

Perhaps it was Septemberthat did this to him,his hostility struck the match on handblown glass,not him,he had nothing to do with their pulse,when rocks swarmed overand blew as leaves along the knife’s edgeinto summer,without even a harvest between their liesthey ignited a fire--

it reached sunlight in a matter of seconds.

2.It is quite possibleit was the other guyclammed inside my fistwho torched the phone bookand watched blood seep from the light socket.

Two days into leaving,the river’s outer frond flushes worms imagined in the fireonto the embankment of rust,mud deep when imagination became an asterisk in the mind.

In this hue--earth swept to the center of the eye,pulses outward from the last acreheld to the match’s blue flame.

Mention _________,and a thickening lump in the ozone layerwill appear as a house with its lights turned off--radio waves tangled like antlers inside its oven,because somewherein the hallway nearest thirst,the water coursing through our clansbegins to evaporateas it slides down our backseats--its wilderness boiled out of our bodies.

A reverence in the order of time arises now some undersurface into silk geometries of here thereforeobserving this swerve of lawful aim as pliant capacity curlsinto what could be weeks of this unlikely touch

deserving tongue's synod plead the hereinafterunto shores kept safe between the pages of an ark outlive us —escape and case in point—

render unshaven this day our cupped hands unsure along the lilt of jaw rejoin

your collarbone | allure made known and roseate and hollowin the shape of lissome night

recede to surge again | my throat moan in the fraught mindand bodily intentions of is

this a kiss | a headswell grin of abandoned contiguity of mouths glide drunk with persuaded hearts'surrendering apparel am I watching these soft drawn tenses of fragrant beige or so inside your amulet anatomy

If there's no jeopardy to these offices of the flesh—jewel pressed against this all-involving spot—

then it's a rapture uncertain this company rare

and where on the horizon was itover the summer so numb therewithnow a winter hum of knowing a sciencesomething no one need notice

if this is gift-givenor spellbound or a thievery | else this is dumb-struckand falling asleep thereoutside of this rattle shall we gather my vanguard of god as we pleasure on the other edgeof this election year my luminary

in whose rogue nation to imaginea commonwealth is to make impossible any casualty in this occurrence

Full foreground and shortcomings of this intercourseif our voices mattered amid this kind of predictable thinking, institution of secrets civil-silenced or stammered-over without filling the gaps in an ecstatic state of clashing consonants when it all comes off the jack-end behind the back-alley store-front in pull-backsway I mean I couldn’t care less about anybody’s private life, but it helps explain why total incompetents, with no knowledge of the language or society, are running the showwhich is to beg it I know and so self-inflicted I’m creaming over these officers of the peace, joint chiefs of staff, no longer anyone to punish me—and so extricate myself from the weird undertow that kept me here to begin with in acrimony of mind and argument, in avulsion of what I weigh when lending you power of attorney. . .

As when a machine rises to the surface of the present like the completion of a past, and it’s a point of rupture from which a legacy will emerge in the future, an evolution as per all the creative forces of science art and social promise, entangled in an emerging sphere of abstract efflorescence, a blurring effect over these agents of changein places where local language is deemed insurgent, these truant cascades of speech repeatedly coerced into

dropping all that ornamental excess—of parse, spell and punctuate our thoughts into the chilly spaces of the textbook if we are to master the brawnof power and knowledge,a kind of opacity through which the various will have difficulty passing save in other ways to be sorry I no say this more betterwhen the guh-g-g-guys call me sugar or sweetheart

It happens when the drift--rebounding of the wind'sa sound of flint to strike a spark from steelunderstandings that were meant for ushere suddenly in the history of whyI have these matters to address, simplythings to say and a form to fashion a kindof wholeness that begs no difference,denies no fissure in the gemstone,pries into the corpse of it, says allelements will move you forward intime, the model more elusivenow than ever, if no one to fool.

As natural as hunger to a body,a sheet of iron, a stalk of corn,an agate in our hands claimingthe right to petition an assembly,perform the seams of a nectardrawn with bright nervous pulsesacross the clearing of us here,and the city there producinglures to keep me penultimatefrom the satisfied frets and roseslike warm milk. The hauntedmatter hovering beyond reach,teaching his lover to delay andankles raised above my shouldersso it glistened like tourmaline,a summer fruit in the moist airas far as I was asked to crawl when

not entirely of independent meansto know the effort of body and mindto an end, or useful for a specialpurpose in sums payable in returnfor services rendered by time inwages per hour for the purchasingof coal from India, gold from Brazil,tea from Rwanda and oil from Kuwait

Blues man, blues man,
I can see you now,
midnight in the juke womb,
kerosene lights blazing
like your eyes through the smoke
close by the river
all the way out of town,
you getting the youngsters on their feet
twirling, spinning, hugging, shaking and smiling,
as you sit there strong in your spot,
strumming that old acoustic six-string,
smacking it on its bare butt,
lifting your bulk off the stool
with each vigorous slam;
the slide jumping around the frets
like a mad and ravenous metal insect,
eager to bend those chords, to blend them whole,
making that guitar wail, throb, and shiver,
making passionate love to it
like it was a pretty woman,
first gentle—then hard—
for those precious hours you serenade us
with your deep delta delicious raspy voice,
punctuated poignant with kissing your shiny harp,
letting your busy tongue coax
the sweet sadness out of it—damn,
we are neither black nor white, no, no,
we’re just folks, part of the people
sharing one huge smile as we thump our feet,
pound our legs,
getting married to the rhythm you thrust out
into the hot smoky night.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

To my joy, I received my copy of this fabulous book of poetry, and since Bobby Byrd has consented to sign it for me, I am sending it off to his Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso today. It will be my first book with an author's signature in it. Maybe it will start a trend for me, who knows? The article below is posted on Bobby's blog, or actually the Cinco Puntos blog, and it illustrates a lot about the book and the man.

Glenn Buttkus

What’s Up magazine Lunch With Poet Bobby Byrd

I was first introduced to Bobby Byrd's poetry 25 years ago, when I collaborated with him, sax player Art Lewis and bassist Manny Flores on an improvisational performance aired on KTEP. Bobby read his poetry as we musicians reacted to the images and emotions shaped by his rich words.

He's published a new book of poetry, “White Panties, Dead Friends and Other Bits and Pieces of Love.” As he sat across the table from me answering my questions, giving life to ideas by reading lines from his poems, I felt special - like I was getting a private audience.

“The angels are fluttering overhead.Their wings are idyllic, their voices perfect, their harps golden,but they have no sex between their legsand those fancy harps are innocent of mistakesthus, no jazz is allowed.” *

Picture this being read in a lyrical drawl that rings of Beale Street in Memphis, only you're at The Pike Street Market in Downtown El Paso. Hear it for yourself Friday, when he celebrates the book's release at La Norteña Cafe. The event also highlights “How We Will Know When We're Dead,” a spoken word / music collaboration with Sparta frontman Jim Ward.

Dan - What got you started writing poetry?

Bobby - When I was a kid, I thought it was weird to write poetry. To be a poet, not the manly profession, no? So I hid my poetry for a long time until a friend, Harvey Goldner, started showing me his work. It was weird and berserk. I enjoyed that. We started hanging out at the library listening to records of Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg. Harvey started telling me books to read. My God, Camus' “The Stranger” changed my life.

Dan - You've said that your work is narrative, in plain language, with a spirituality to it.

Bobby - If I had to build an American family tree of my poetry, then I'd start with Walt Whitman, followed by William Carlos Williams, the New American Generation, who are my immediate predecessors - especially, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Paul Blackburn, Philip Whalen, et cetera - all of whom really emphasize the American idiom and the importance of place in defining their poetry. My idea of plainspeak comes from this and my growing up in Memphis in the '50s where plainspeak was epitomized in the music I listened to - the blues, rhythm and blues, and the beginnings of rock-and-roll. And then spirituality - you don't come out of the South easily without a sense of the religious. But for me, Christianity didn't work. Ginsberg and Snyder especially were writing about Zen Buddhism in the '50s. That made a lot of sense to me, appreciating that basic religious experience that we all have; those special times when we look at something or someone - a flower, a mountain, a homeless man, a woman - and we lose ourselves in that experience. We lose our ego. We and the other person or thing are simply one.

Dan - So music is important to your work.

Bobby - Cadence especially, how everything flows. I love music, I love my poetry to be musical. I pay attention to that a lot. When Jim Ward was working out music for my poems, he told me that my reading had a musical structure to it, that it fit nicely into measures.

Dan - Tell me more about the CD you recorded with Jim.

Bobby - I recorded the poems and he listened to them and jammed with my voice, laying over various tracks that felt right to him. The thing I like, however, is that this young guy is interested in my work. It makes sense to him, and he's come forward to do this. It's his money, his time, his energy. I'm honored.

Dan - We haven't talked about the El Paso influence; you've lived here almost 30 years.

Bobby - El Paso has been very important to me. Especially our neighborhood, the Five Points area, and Downtown and Juárez. Lee [Bobby's wife] and I felt like we had come home in some odd way when we moved here. There's a certain romance about El Paso, its funkiness in the American psyche, a place where the imagination and so-called reality can live next door to each other like good neighbors, sort of. They can speak Spanish or English, they don't care. So El Paso has entered my poems as subtext, a place where Jesus Christ and Pancho Villa can walk around and get to know one another.

*From “Ode for 60 Years on the Planet.” Copyright 2006 by Bobby Byrd. Used by permission.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Oh, man, here's some great poems by a Native poet (you have to register on their site to read the work, but this online magazine is very much worth it): narrativemagazine.com.

I met Natalie a couple years back and it was like meeting a sibling: she's a ball-playin' Injun poet (and being a former pro, I'm sure she could kick my butt, especially now that my game is as broken down as a rez car, and that I am, on the court, at least, "a tattered coat on a stick.").

I'm really excited about Natalie's work, and, as I previously mentioned on my site, and will mention again, am also jazzed about the new books of poetry by S.G. Frazier (narrativemagazine.com) and Orlando White (readab.com). And now I've received word that Sherwin Bitsui (poets.org) has a new book of poems soon to be published by one of the most prestigious poetry publishers, Copper Canyon Press.

So, for the first time in many years, we have a group of new Native writers receiving national acclaim. I'm hoping that we are on the verge of a New New New New New Native American Literary Renaissance. For those of you keeping score, it's been 13 years since a Native writer (princeton.edu) burst onto the literary scene in a major league way. - posted 2/28/09

When my brother diedI worried there wasn't enough timeto deliver the one hundred invitations I'd scribbled while on the phone with the mortuary:Because of the short notice no need to RSVPUnfortunately the firemen couldn't come,(I had hoped they'd give free rides on the truck).They did agree to drive by the house oncewith the lights on—It was a party after all.

I put Mom and Dad in charge of balloons,let them blow as many years of my brother's name,jails, twenty-dollar bills, midnight phone calls,fistfights and ER visits as they could let go of.The scarlet balloons zigzagged along the ceilinglike they'd been filled with helium. Mom blew upso many that she fell asleep. She slept for ten years—she missed the whole party.

My brothers and sisters were giddy, shreddinghis stained t-shirts and raggedy pants, throwing them upinto the air like confetti.

When the clowns came in a few balloons slipped out the front door. They seemed to know where they were going and shrank to a fistful of red grins at the end of our cul-de-sac. The clowns played toy bugles until the air was scented with rotten raspberries. They pulled scarves from Mom's ear—she slept through it.I baked my brother's favorite cake (chocolate, white frosting). When I counted there were ninety-nine of us in the kitchen.Everyone stuck their fingers in the mixing bowl.

A few stray dogs came to the window.I heard their stomachs and mouths growlingover the mariachi band playing in the bathroom.(There was no room in the hallway because of the magician.)The mariachis complained about the bathtub acoustics.I told the dogs No more cake here and shut the window.The fire truck came by with the sirens on. The dogs ran away. I sliced the cake into ninety-nine pieces.

I wrapped all the electronic equipment in the house, taped pink bows and glittery ribbons to them—remote controls, the Polaroid, stereo, shop-vac, even the motor to Dad's work truck—all the thingsmy brother had taken apart and put back together doing his crystal meth tricks—he'd always beena magician of sorts.

Two mutants came to the door.One looked almost-human. They wantedto know if my brother had willed them the pots and pans and spoons stacked in his basement bedroom.They said they missed my brother's cooking and did wehave any cake. No more cake here I told them.Well what's in the piñata they asked. I told them God was and they ran into the desert, barefoot.I gave Dad his slice and put Mom's in the freezer.I brought up the pots and pans and spoons(really, my brother was a horrible cook), banged them together like a New Year's Day celebration.

My brother finally showed up asking whyhe hadn't been invited and who baked the cake.He told me I shouldn't smile, that this whole party was shitbecause I'd imagined it all. The worst part he said was he was still alive. The worst part he said was he wasn't even dead. I think he's right, but maybe the worst part is that I'm still imagining the party, maybe the worst part is that I can still taste the cake.

he lived in our basement and sacrificed my parents every morning. It was awful. Unforgivable. But they kept coming back for more. They loved him, was all they could say.

It started with him stumbling along la Avenida de los Muertos,my parents walking behind like effigies in a processionhe might burn to the ground at any moment. They didn't know

what else to do except be there to pick him up when he died.They forgot who was dying, who was already dead. My brotherquit wearing shirts when a carnival of dirty-breasted women

made him their leader, following him up and down the stairs—They were acrobats, moving, twitching like snakes—They fed himcrushed diamonds and fire. He gobbled the gifts. My parents

begged him to pluck their eyes out. He thought he was Huitzilopchtli, a god, half-man, half-hummingbird. My parentsat his feet, wrecked honeysuckles, he lowered his sword-like mouth,

gorged on them, draining color until their eyebrows whitened.My brother shattered and quartered them before his basement festivals—waved their shaking hearts in his fists,

while flea-ridden dogs ran up and down the steps, licking their asses,turning tricks. Neighbors were amazed my parents' hearts keptgrowing back—It said a lot about my parents, or parents' hearts.

My brother flung them into cenotes, dropped them from cliffs, punched holes into their skulls like useless jars or vases, broke them to pieces and fed them to gods ruling

the ratty crotches of street fair whores with pocked faces spreading their thighs in flophouses with no electricity. He slept in filthy clothes smelling of rotten peaches and matches, fell in love

with sparkling spoonfuls the carnival dog-women fed him. My parents lost their appetites for food, for sons. Like all bad kings, my brother wore a crown, a green baseball cap turned backwards

with a Mexican flag embroidered on it. When he wore it in the front yard, which he treated like his personal zócalo, all his realm knew he had the power that day, had all the jewels

a king could eat or smoke or shoot. The slave girls came to the fence and ate out of his hands. He fed them maíz through the chain links. My parents watched from the window,

crying over their house turned zoo, their son who was now a rusted cage. The Aztec held court in a salt cedar grove across the street where peacocks lived. My parents crossed fingers

so he'd never come back, lit novena candles so he would. He always came home with turquoise and jadefeathers and stinking of peacock shit. My parents gathered

what he'd left of their bodies, trying to stand without legs,trying to defend his blows with missing arms, searching for their fingers to pray, to climb out of whatever dark belly my brother, the Aztec, their son, had fed them to.

Two Things You Need Balls To Do: A Miscellany From a Former Professional Basketball Player Turned Poet

The basketball court = the page

Buzzer-beaters and miracle shots are non-existent in poetry—every poem I’ve desperately heaved into the mail with more prayer than craft or confidence has been off the mark.

Uniforms:

You need one to play pro ball.

Vs.

You can write in only your undies, or in just an Allman Brothers Concert t-shirt, or better yet, nothing more than your housecoat and dark socks, sans sports bra…no one cares.

Once you’re issued a uniform on a professional basketball team, you’re an official professional.

Vs.

Until you publish a book, you’re in a developing league, i.e. playing for love of the game.

You can exaggerate, embellish, imagine or lie about what happens in a poem.

Vs.

In basketball, a man or woman in stripes will blow a whistle that means, ‘Yeah, right. You know you slapped her arm. I saw you.’

Basketball, like poetry, is a universal language, but not yet like fiction and fútbol, but we’re working on it.

Traveling: (a) in poetry is encouraged, (b) in basketball will land you on the bench.

Sitting: (a) again, highly encouraged in poetry, (b) not so great in basketball, regardless of whether it’s a bench or a chair.

Solitariness: (a) a must for writing poetry, (b) technically speaking, it’s not possible to play basketball alone (however, some people are much better when they have no opponent).

Suicides: (a) not good for poets, ever, (b) never good for basketball players either.

Fouls = Rejection Letters

BUT in poetry, you don’t have to keep track of the # you accumulate, which is a good thing for some of us. (In the event there is a rejection letter limit, please, I’d rather not know.)

The Matter of Rejection Letters: Sure they hurt. They bruise the ego a little. This is where basketball comes in handy—remember ‘No Blood, No Foul,’ and, ‘You’re either hurt, or you’re injured.’ If your fingers aren’t broken, if your nose isn’t bleeding, get out there. Plus, getting your 3-pt shot blocked (a.k.a. rejected, stuffed, packed, denied, shut down, faced, etc.) into the 3rd row by Chamique Holdsclaw in the NCAA Finals, in front of over 30,000 people, and on national TV, is so-much-worse than having the New Yorker reject you quietly, politely, and over the privacy of your email. Another thing, in basketball, no one will give you cryptic pointers about your shot, like ‘Memorable, but needs culling.’

Injuries:

I tore my ACL, meniscus, and MCL (the unhappy triad), fractured my leg and wrist, severed a blood vessel under my eye socket, had numerous concussions, many jambed fingers, dislocated a shoulder, gritted through IT-Band Syndrome and cortisone shots, pulled muscles, sprained ankles that I still have nightmares about—all playing basketball.

Vs.

Once, I was rushing to the post office to make a post-mark deadline and I stubbed my toe on the curb out front.

Similarity:

The cost of basketball shoes, which need to be replaced every 3 months, is equal to the amount you’ll spend on contests.

Which brings me to contests:

For those of us ‘retirees,’ the absence of the thrill of competition has left us hungry and desperate. I am, to my detriment, a contest junkee, often foregoing open submissions because I’m determined to win something, ANYTHING, one last time. It’s not the prize money I’m after, it’s the word: Winner.

I’ve stooped so low as to only apply for fellowships at universities that my college basketball team beat during my playing days. If I’m rejected, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that, one time, not long ago, I was the winner.

Another similarity: I used to be a champ at playing H-O-R-S-E and recently I wrote a poem about a horse.

Nostalgia:

I know I can’t fill the void that basketball has left, but some days when I rise from my desk chair and feel shooting pain in my knees (which are not yet thirty in poetry years, but in basketball years are ancient) and creaking in other joints, I recognize these aches as close to what I once had. And every now and then, I let go of a line or an image and know instantly, as soon as it rolls from the curve of my mind or my gut, that it’s going in, that it won’t rattle around the rim, it won’t brick-up and fall short or bounce too hard from the backboard, that it won’t fall flat on the page…and it’s smooth and sure and turns the net to flames, and as much as I want to stand and watch it, and pat myself on the ass for how beautiful it is, I know I have to keep moving on down the page.

Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan-Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation

Angels don't come to the reservation.Bats, maybe. Or owls, boxy mottled things;coyotes too. They all mean the same thing—death. But angels? No way. And deatheats angels, I guess, because I haven't seen an angelfly through this valley ever.Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though.He came through here one pow-wow and stayed, typicalIndian. Sure he had wings, jail bird that he was. He flies around in stolen cars. Wherever he stops, kids grow like gourds from women's bellies.Like I said, no Indian I've ever heard of has ever been or seen an angel.Maybe in a Christmas pageant or something.Nazarene Church holds one every December,organized by Pastor John's wife. It's no wonderPastor John's son is the angel. Everyone knows angels are white.Quit bothering with angels, I say, they’re no good for Indians.Remember what happened last time some white god came floating across the ocean.Truth is, there may be angels, but if there are angelsup there, living on clouds or sitting in castles across the sea wearing velvet robes and golden wings, drinking whiskey from silver cups,we're better off if they stay rich and fat and ugly andexactly where they are—in their own distant heavens and worlds.You better hope you never see angels on the rez. If you do, they'll be marching you off toZion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they've mapped out for us.

Bamboo, slender and lime ripe, shoots straight, hard and up from cobalt and white hand-painted vases like prison bars cutting you into halves, fracturing the world until you forget which side is caged which side is free, you suffocate and breathe, gasping for answers that hide

like flowers too weed to bloom, leaving you to part the stalkssee see but you never doin the jeweled box behind your eyes you can, inside you are a baby, your head a round jade bead, heavy, smooth you cry when the red egg is rolled on your crown, you cry when you are hungry when you are sleepy,

stopping only when your mother folds you to her breasts where you grow golden suckling on jasmine and candied ginger, you learn to speak orange-flavored words that sting your tongue

the spot on your elbow, a fall you never rose from, still peppered with asphalt on your twelfth birthday a priest brought you the purple twelve-speed bike you wanted for months

the death of your father came the day before, unwrapped and ribbonless, you accepted them both with unmoving lips and eyes trembling inside like a broken-winged bird, you listened for your mother’s words

instead she fell to the bed, you nodded your head and pressed your face to her now flat and empty, yellow and hard like a callous, you heard no song in either chest—

you shut your eyes for the first time like tiny bronze shields, lychee blossoms sprouted filling the garden beyond the stretch of stone wallyes yes you said, because you knew—

Who is there now to lift their shirt to you? To recognize the salt in your tired breath and pluck the leathery fruit from the place where hearts were meant to grow?Who will speak the words across your eyelids shh shh?

Houdini arrived first, with Antigone on his arm.Someone should have told her it was rudeto chase my brother in circles with such a shiny shovel.She only said, I’m building the man a funeral.But last I measured, my brother was still a boy. The doorbell chimes and chimes. Other guests comein and out, snorting, mouths lathered, eyes spinninglike spirogyras. They are starving, bobbing their big heads,ready for a party. They keep saying it too, Man, we’re readyfor a party! In their glorious twirl and dervish, none of them notice this is no dinner party. This is a jalopy carousel—and we are dizzy. We are here to eat the horses.There are violins playing. The violins are on fire—they are passed around until we’re all smoking. Jesus coughs,climbs down from the cross of railroad ties above the table.He’s a regular at these carrion revelries, and it’s annoyinghow he turns the bread to fish, especially when we have sandwiches. I’ve never had the guts to ask Jesus, Why?Old Houdini can’t get over ’em—the holes in each of Jesus’ hands—he’s smitten, and drops first a butter knife, then a candelabra through the gaping in the right hand. He holds Jesus’ left palm up to his face, wriggles his tongue through the opening, then spits, says, This tastes like love. He laughs hysterically, Admit it Chuey, between you and me, someone else is coming.Antigone is back, this time with the green-handled garden spade.Where is your brother? she demands. She doesn’t realizethis is not my brother’s feast—he simply set the table.Poor Antigone. Bury the horses,instead, I tell her.What will we eat then? she weeps, not knowing weeping isn’t what it used to be, not here. Poor, poor, Antigone.I look around for Houdini to get her out of here.He’s escaped. In the corner, Jesus covers his face with his hands—each hole an oubliette—I see right through them:None of us belong here. I’m the only one left to say it.I ease the spade from her hand. I explain: We aren’t here to eat, we are being eaten. Come, pretty girl. Let us devour our lives.

Natalie Diaz

Natalie Diaz was born and raised on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation in Needles, California. After playing professional basketball in Europe and Asia for four years, she returned to Old Dominion University and completed her MFA, in 2007. Diaz has been awarded both the 2007 Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry and the 2007 Tobias Wolff Fiction Prize. She lives in Surprise, Arizona.

(O, O, O, O, the owl dance, two steps forward, one step back, O, O, O, O, listen to the drummers attack that drum, O, O, O, O, if a woman asks you to owl dance, you have to accept her offer, O, O, O, O, but if you still have the nerve to decline, then you must pay her want she wants, O, O, O, O, give her some money, honey, fill her coffers, O, O, O, O, and then you have to stand in front of the entire powwow and tell everybody exactly why and how you refused her, O, O, O, O, and if you refuse to detail your refusal, you will be named and shamed out of the powwow, O, O, O, O, but, mister, why would you want to say no to your sister, O, O, O, O, but, brother, why would you want to say no to your mother, O, O, O, O, all of these women are your sisters and mothers, O, O, O, O, they're somebody's sisters and mothers, so, mister, so, brother, dance with the women, mister, brother, dance with the women, mister, brother, dance with the women, mister, brother, dance with the women, mister, brother, they're everybody's sisters and mothers),

Monday, March 23, 2009

I was electedEmporer of Chinaand what could be more fun?But soon after the electionI was stripped of my crownduring an assemblyat which no oneperson in the realmwould step forwardto say a good wordabout anything I'd donesince I'd been elected.

With bamboo sticksand cursesI was driven from the palaceand the only job I could findin all of Chinawas working in a rice paddybarefootfrom sunup to sundown.

2:: He Went to the Mountaintop

Propelledby the force of his willhe flewto the top of the mountainbut his will couldn't stop himfrom sliding back downand while sliding back downhe broke a leg in three places.At the foot of the mountaina kind sistera Mother Superiorwearing ancient laceyellowing and moth-eatenfixed his leg instantlywith her magicher grace.

Impressedhe requested her phone number.She gave him an envelopewhich contained her business cardand a three-dollar bill.Printed on the cardwere her phone numbersand the names of several citiesincluding Rioand San Paulo.

There I dreamed of my mother's greatchicken stew simmering on hercharcoal stove and of meltinginto my wife's cool fleshin a hotel room in Baghdad,where my pals and I used to stroll the streetsafter the sun went downand then stop beside the Tigrisfor dishes of strawberry ice under stars.How I laughed at the deep frownwhich appeared on my grandfather's facewhen he saw me in uniformfor the first time.

There comes a time to roam the world. After the debts are paid(or successfully ditched) and after the charming children aresafely careered or married, there comes a time to sell thehouse or break the lease, a time to break the leashand roam the world. But you must move quickly:an old dog must trot chop-chop (and you do remember how?)to escape the four warm tar babies of the "new" apocalypse;comfort, companionship,

Social Security and medical science, whose grand andwell-lit hospitals are dark and narrow hallways to thegrave, laundry chutes to the garbage cans of the moon.But mostly an old fool must speed up (chewing a fewpeyote buttons might be indicated as a radical jumpstart; but consult your local witch doctor) to escape

the quivering pit of bullshit, pride and opinionsthat he's spent a lifetime making and has cometo call his featherbed. You'll know it's timewhen you see that the grass is red, not green,when "every" day is dead, like Sunday or your

birthday, and when the buried roots of treesshine brighter than the branches. Wake-up,old man (ravaged face in the mirror), let'sgo. Together we might find the younger

woman, man, or whatever, whose eyesflood sunshine and who seemsperpetually poised for flight.

Can you remember when you picked thisup, started reading and thought: "Hownice, a flow of ice cream splashinginto a plum purple bowl of syllablesthat go crack, pop, snap; toppedwith a fistful of wild mount rasp-berries, so plump and sweetthat a black bear might kill for them?"

Well, that's what it was--"was".That was the bait. But whenyou took your eyes off the pageand thought,"What trash! That crasslow poet will get none of my praise:I'll slice up his poem with my razortongue"--that's when I made the switch.

What you've got now isa sack of dirty sand, andI'm not going to untie your assuntil you've swallowed every bite.

In Emerald Citywhen you gaze up toward the starsfor inspiration and faithyou often get a facefull of rainwhich could explain whySeattle's the nation'smoist livable cityand the suicide capitolof the Pacific Rim.

Now I have to leave this sofawhere I’d gladly remain untilthe end of my earthly days.I must get in my car and drivewhere many other cars will be,my standard transmissionmaking it even harder to bethe lazy one I so love to be.And the sofa will miss me,will remember and keep theindentation of my buttocks until I return. (If I return.)But I should return, asthere is a thick fog andtraffic will be slow — nospectacular crashes today.Bumper to bumper, I’llpush that freaking clutch in500 times until I’m back here.But I shouldn’t complain.I am heartily loved and somedayThe Child will be a teen, drivingherself to my hell and backand no doubt I’ll be missingthese simple days when all Ihad to do was pick her up anddrop her off places I’d plannedfor her to be, not sitting at homeworrying where she is and if she’sokay, while this or another fine sofawill have all my buttocks it can handle.

We sat on the benchoutside the cafecrossed leggedfacing each other,knees touching –a diamond ofmother-daughter.She was five.I took her smallhands in mineto tell her thather ”best friend”had not invited herto the sleepover party.Overall, she took thatfirst heartbreakmuch better than I.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

"Ladies & Gentlemen, the ROLLING STONES." We have been hearing that, most of us for over half our lives, since the early 1960's. For a time, when i was young, dumb, and rebellious, during the seven year reign of the Beatles, whom we thought would go on forever, we used to jokingly say, "If you have one Rolling Stones record, you have them all." No one ever thought that 60's rock bands would be resurrected and would tour with never less than one surviving band member way up into the new century. And then you have the Rolling Stones, the most successful rock and roll band in history. I just finished viewing Martin Scorsese's SHINE A LIGHT, his documentary on the Stones done last year, and released in IMAX theaters. Scorsese captured the energy, the humanity, the fun the group still has after all these years. One forgets that Mick Jagger can do more than sing off key and wiggle his ass. He plays a mean blues harp, and actually is not a bad guitar player either, doing a slide guitar number that holds up well. Coming off the intensity and drive the film exerts, I could not get the band out of my mind. So here is a pictorial of 100 shots to let you in on some of my Stoned mania. No band will ever match their longevity, their energy, and hell, they are still out there doing it. Enjoy.

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